How do I edit content from a DVD?

It seems more and more common that editors are being asked to use content from a DVD- perhaps the client has provided you with last years annual report DVD… and wants you to redit it. (Remember, ripping off copyrighted content is a Federal offense with imprisonment and large fines possible!)

You can use MacTheRipper to get the content from a DVD on your hard drive (OS X only)

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There is an app for pro results in this DVD-to-edit job.
It’s called DVDxDV and is by far the best solution, since it does this conversion very nicely, in one single pass (extracting then encoding with ffmpeg works -and that’s how i do it- but you have to deal with the sound in a second pass)
It even allows you to extract to a 10bits uncompressed file, with awesome results (if the DVD was encoded fine that is)

But if you are looking for a free solution, mactheripper (or yadeX) then ffmpegX to encode in DV is the way to go. just remember to make two passes : one for picture, one for sound, then merge them in FCP, save as a standalone moovie, and this is your “media” file to start editing with.

I have a clients wedding video – not copywritghted I used handbreak to pull off m4v files and converted to .mov through quick time but fCp won’t recognize. It likes the .dv files I made through quick time put I lost quality.

Do you know which settings to go from Handbrake and then in quick time for best quality.
I’ve been troubleshooting for two days because the exports take so long.

I am getting sporadic audio dropouts when I ‘export to quicktime’ my VOB files. I’m an exporting in progressive format with IMA 4:1 audio format at 48khz. I have also tried using Uncompressed audio at 48khz. I can’t figure out what the problem is. Any ideas?

This is all so confusing. Why can’t their just be something that rips a DVD into files that Final Cut can read automatically? Why would I want to rip VOB files and the like anyway. If I want to copy a DVD, I can do that on my home DVD player which costs much less than a Mac and Final Cut editing software!

Another option, maybe less popular because of “shell shock” of the GUI generation, is to use vobcopy. For popular Linux distros, it is snap to install. It is a shell application that you can do a few things with. One is mirror the DVD to hard drive. For OSX, just install Fink and do the “apt-get install” thing. I find it’s slow on OSX but on my Linux box it rips fast.

I am trying to get footage off a DVD into FCP to edit. Its footage a company made and want it incorporated into their promotional video so its not copyrighted.
I cant download anything because im at work and its a company computer and im unsure about downloading anything. They have a video converter but it doesnt seem to work.
Help!

Josh, I use Handbrake. Should I convert the DVD into DIVX? Problem is, the audio doesn’t stay rendered for some reason, only the video does (once inside the FCE timeline).

I uses Handbrake to capture from the DVD, and then Quicktime to convert to DIVX. It worked last time i tried almost a year ago, but I wonder if there have been updates to FCE that now prevent such conversions?

Funny, but I have been captureing video from DVD’s for several months through Final cut Pro, did not know I needed specialized software to do this. I capture it and Im able to edit any part I want within FCP! If anyone wants to now what Im doing, just write.

“Funny, but I have been captureing video from DVD’s for several months through Final cut Pro, did not know I needed specialized software to do this. I capture it and Im able to edit any part I want within FCP! If anyone wants to now what Im doing, just write.”

No problem with sharing, it’s my pleasure. I have been needing to answer this question for quite sometime, I have just had too many irons in the fire. Basically I use my HDR-FX1 as a hardware interface by hooking it up my DVD player VIA RCA and then capture manually in FCP! Obviously i’m hooked up with firewire from the Camera to the MAC. Anymore questions, feel free and happy editing!

thankx bob, and all the others, easy does it, bypass. But without HDR-FX1;
iMovieHD gets VOB-files straigt of the DVD, so you don’t need to enter the whole film, iMovie’08 doesn’t, so keep an iMovie HD somewhere (it takes a hell of a time). Once you saved them, you enter them in FCP or FCE. This is how far I got. No sound though in FCP, howcome? How to prevent loss of quality of the image? I do care less about the sound.

I would suggest using Cinematize or Cinematize Pro. Works great, and seems a little more elegant and easier to use than Mpeg-Streamclip. I also couldn’t figure out how to get StreamClip to preserve the correct aspect ratio. It seems it only lets you choose 16:9 or 4:3. That just won’t cut it.

Also Mac DVDRipper Pro has ripped anything I’ve thrown at it. MactheRipper is abandonware at this point if I’m not mistaken…